Elsewhere, the Inner West Council in February flagged plans to update a 2012 Marrickville Council review that recommended halving its 18-hole golf course to free up lands for biodiversity corridors and new sporting fields.

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Eastlake Golf Club, Daceyville is part of the proposed site for a major public park.Credit:Brendan Esposito

Northern Beaches' administrator Dick Persson said the council developed a 15-year sportsground strategy after being approached by sporting clubs that said they were already so desperate for space they were turning away new players.

"They made the claim that golf's been in decline for a long time, and challenged me to look at that," Mr Persson said.

"This review uncovered, to my surprise, that the northern beaches has half the number of sports fields as comparable councils, like Sutherland and the Hills, and twice as many golf courses as the rest of Sydney per head."

The Northern Beaches Council has proposed slicing off half of the 18-hole Warringah Golf Course.

The Warringah course, one of seven on council land, would be reduced to nine holes under the plan. The proposal would convert the remaining northern end of the site into a "Centennial Park-style sporting area" incorporating fields, walking paths and picnic spots.

The proposal would only be enacted from in 2022. And it would follow other measures to improve the capacity of existing fields, such as installing some synthetic surfaces to enable more intensive use.

But the idea is already being met with stiff resistance from the Warringah Golf Club, which argues it membership and social playing had held "fairly" constant at 65,000 rounds per year amid an overall decline in golf.

Club president Scott Campbell said granting it a 20-year lease for only half of its existing course - with the northern section to instead be covered by a five-year agreement and three potential five-yearly extensions - would hamper its long-term plans.

"We acknowledge that we could be a solution, but we don't believe that they should be doing it in the short term – it would be more the medium to long term to give us a bit more surety to attract membership and retain social play," Mr Campbell said.

Kelvin Milsom, the secretary of the Manly Warringah Pittwater Sporting Union that represents more than 40,000 local sports players across 17 different codes, said it was "inevitable" golf course land would need to be used to address the shortfall in other sports.

"Whether this is the actual plan is a long way off because the decision won't be made for at least five years," Mr Milsom said.

The draft strategy is open to public consultation until July and would need to be formally adopted by the newly elected councillors later this year.

Mr Persson said it would be "a shame" if politics meant the new Northern Beaches council failed to bite the bullet.

"In principle I would say that decisions made 50 to 100 years ago to allocate some open space to golf ... they should be revisited if demands and circumstances have changed," he said.

"[These assets are] not owned by the golf club, they're owned by the people."